Re: Change (was: (TFT) Jobs table: ...)

[Denis DesHarnais <denisdesharnais@gmail.com>]

I was not implying that proximity was the only driver of innovation, just
that it could be a (or the) major one.

Vis warlord with wizards: interesting point.  I think it does not scale well
because we (the GMs) generally simplify the politics of our worlds to make
them more playable.

Scenario:

With so many wizards in the world, and human nature being what it is, there
was soon a drive among wizards working for warlords to create a distinction
between those practicing "The Art," or noble wizards, and those practicing
"For Hire," or common wizards.  Since noble wizards had the ear of the law
makers, new and stringent laws were enacted to regulate and generally
discourage the practice of magic for and by the general population.

This could lead to an inquisition-type of scenario with rigid rules as to
morally/religiously acceptable magic, a guerilla warfare scenario with more
numerous but ill-equipped masses against the regime, or a Pol Pot campaign
against general magic use that was not in service to the government, with
lots of cloak and dagger paranoia.

Dungeoneering would take a back seat to politics and skirmishes in this type
of gaming. This strikes me as much more work, which might be why I avoided
these scenarios when I used to play regularly.  Also I was a cheating,
rule-abusing, teenage nerd on whom nuance was utterly lost, but I suppose
that goes without saying.

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:19 PM, <raito@raito.com> wrote:

> I think you mistake my point. Gunpowder weapons were around early, and so
> the argument that post-gunpowder = late isn't really true (and you're not
> the one who asserted that).
> As for the rest, I'm sceptical. Yes, growth of population may or may not
> parallel technological advance, but correlation is not causation, as they
> say. But this does not account for innovation following the Black Plague, or
> necessarily explain Flornce in the Rennaisance.
> As far as magic goes, we know that TFT does not scale well, so why should
> its magic be any different? Take a town of 30,000 (which certainly existed
> in this world in medieval times). ITL says that 100 of those guys will be
> wizards. Let's say 10 of them have sufficient IQ to know how to make any
> particular sort of item (becausae we're assuming they work together). The
> other 90 guys make dandy apprentices in that respect. And because this is an
> on-going concern, they have labs and a supplies of materials. They'd be
> kicking out magic items at a pretty fair clip.
> And what warlord wouldn't have some wizards on the payroll just to be
> churning out Weapon/Armor enchantments as fast as they can? That extra point
> or two makes a difference. And since politics are variable, might as well
> spring for the enchantment that says that the W/A E goes away if the wrong
> person handles the weapon.
> It's rather like an article I read long ago on Shadowrun tha pointed out
> that a character who got their abilities from a corporation would have what
> was best for the corproation, not for an adventurer. And that that result
> was likely to be a character with a single skill, because the corporation
> had thousands of employees, and could afford to keep the skill mix they
> wanted, but wanted each individual to have a high a level in the skill as
> they could get.
> Neil Gilmore
> raito@raito.com
>
> Quoting Denis DesHarnais <denisdesharnais@gmail.com>:
>
>> True, but it took centuries for gunpowder to go from firework to weapon,
>> while in the last century, it took a few decades from the theoretical
>> possibility of the laser as suggested by relativity theory (I am
>> forgetting
>> which part) to implementation, and less than a decade for graphene to go
>> from hypothetical material to prototype.  Again, I don't say that I
>> completely subscribe to this theory, but proximity, be it real or virtual,
>> does appear provide a fair explanation of why it took millennia to go from
>> atl-atl to bow (small and widely-separated tribes), while the interval
>> between the Wright brothers and the Red Baron was less than a generation
>> (telegraph, printing press, major cities worldwide connected
>> by transatlantic steamers).  We seem to think better in groups.
>>
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